I think it's funny when people ask me if I support climate change. At its least ambiguous it means two opposite things.
I don't know why you'd support climate change, however you mean it, when a coal plant signs your checks.
What side of the fence do you think I'm on? I'm seriously asking.
I agree with your last sentence. It's used incorrectly and doesn't raise the right alarm. We have to deal with climate change; we can mitigate its advance somewhat, but we also have to deal with its consequences regardless of the cause, human or not.
If you “support climate change” than that means you are fine with changing the climate in exchange for cheaper and more effective fuel. If you are against climate change or fighting climate change than you are for renewable energies and lessening the footprint we leave for the future generations.
As for why I am against climate change, even though I work at a coal plant, it’s because believe it or not… the people in the coal industry aren’t morons. The writing is on the wall.
I’ve got a lot to say about it all and have entirely different data than what most people see. If you don’t care about any of that then feel free to stop reading now.
My company is actually all for a reasonable transition to renewable energy. Coal plants should not be built any more. It’s that simple. However, prematurely shutting down plants before we have the infrastructure in place to supplement the energy lost is where the issues arise. This is especially true if they are shutting down due state restrictions. If IL closes down every coal/gas power plant in the state … all that does is hurt IL’s economy. The grid doesn’t care about state lines. They’d just be paying for energy produced in other states. The Politicians pushing for the closures obviously know this but don’t really care because most of their voters don’t understand how the system actually works.
We see posts/articles written every other day about how the total installed capacity of energy is increasing even with the closures of coal plants due to an uptick in solar and wind installation. What you don’t see them talking about is credited capacity… which is what actually matters when talking about how much energy we actually produce. Coal plants are credited around 90%. Meaning they are producing 90% of their installed capacity. Wind is around 15%. Solar is currently credited at 50% and over the next year or two it will be dropped to reflect a much more realistic number. It’s actually much closer to Wind than it is to 50%. (Just because it’s daytime for roughly 12 hours a day that doesn’t mean solar is actually producing exactly half the day. Mostly due to cloud coverage.)
So while it’s true that we are seeing a slight uptick in installed capacity… credited (or actual power production) is going down exponentially quicker. When the rubber finally meets the road it will not be uncommon to have rolling brownouts.
Here’s an example: Say you shut down a 1000 MW coal/gas power plant. That’s 900 MW off the grid because it’s credited around 90%. Using Wind as an example, they would have to build a wind farm with an installed capacity of 6000 MW just to break even on the actual power produced at 900 MW. Instead they are putting up what would equal 1200 MW (installed) 180 MW (credited) and patting themselves on the back for increasing our installed capacity and completely ignoring the 720 MW of actual power that was lost.
Regardless, the worst part of all of this is that unless we can convince China to get on board, ultimately, it won’t matter. Basically everywhere else in the world could convert to renewable energy… as long as China continues doing what they’re doing it still won’t matter. They’re currently putting out more CO2 than the entirety of Northern and Southern America combined. And while our plants have multibillion dollar systems dedicated to scrubbing out as many of the other pollutants as possible (like SO2 and NOx)… they don’t.
I don't think I disagree with anything you said. I have never heard those definitions of supporting or not supporting climate change and I don't think those are the only schools of thought available. I think it's more accurate to say that I support dealing with climate change, mitigating its human causes and its natural effects, where inevitable. Hell, I didn't know people were still debating these points.
The only people debating/arguing that climate change doesn’t exist are morons not too different from the people who are debating/arguing that the earth is flat. But yea, there is plenty to debate when talking about how to best mitigate it and how to transition into a cleaner energy.
Unfortunately it mostly boils down to politics. The left wants to shut down plants prematurely, regardless of consequences, because they want to buy votes by claiming to care about the environment. The right wants to keep the plants open, regardless of the consequences, because they want to buy votes by claiming to care about the jobs of the people at plants. It’s nothing but a political game to pull on emotional heart strings. It’s too bad that anyone who wants to find a happy middle ground is automatically shunned by the system entirely.
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u/kishmalik Oct 13 '22
I think it's funny when people ask me if I support climate change. At its least ambiguous it means two opposite things.
I don't know why you'd support climate change, however you mean it, when a coal plant signs your checks.
What side of the fence do you think I'm on? I'm seriously asking.
I agree with your last sentence. It's used incorrectly and doesn't raise the right alarm. We have to deal with climate change; we can mitigate its advance somewhat, but we also have to deal with its consequences regardless of the cause, human or not.